Sewing Machine Review - Brother PQ1500SL

I'm not sure if I was wearing it down, or just trying to sew too fast, but lately I've been pushing my Janome HD3000 to the limit and it was complaining.  Still was sewing pretty good and I'm not getting rid of it, but I managed to tear up 3 needle plates in a year and even with filing they weren't salvageable.  (Torn up needle plates leads to uneven stitches, fabric catching, and even thread breaking).  At $20+ a pop, it was time to decide what my next machine would be or what I could do to prevent that from happening.

I'm calling this one Captain Jack...Harkness or Sparrow is yet to be determined. Also, he's already getting blinged up!

I've been eyeing all of the 'professional' (not industrial) machines for a few years now, and avidly following every time someone asks for suggestions or reviews their machine.  There are a few that are mentioned a lot, the Brother PQ1500S(L), Juki TL2000Q(i), Janome 1600P, and now the Janome HD9.  The HD9 was what really got me interested, until I saw the price.  A lot of the machines have the same features, straight stitch, faster speeds, more room, and more power.  It really came down to price for me.  The Brother was the lowest priced and had some great reviews, plus a thread cutter (oh how I've missed that!), extension table, leg lift lever, and tons of feet!  It also has a pin feed system, which I'm hoping to try with some of my slippery fabrics.


Pros:

• So fast. Makes the HD3000 look like a snail, and I thought that was fast when I got it!
• nice stitches
• powerful - already sewed through 2 layers of vinyl, foam, 3 layers of fabric, decovil heavy, and 3 layers of interfacing with no issues
• Great price
• Lots of room to maneuver bags around in the throat area
• Lots of accessories 
• Thread cutter
• Auto needle down position.  I forgot how awesome this is. 
• Narrow foot means that I can get away with not putting on the zipper foot most of the time and it is 1/8" guide for topstitching!

You can kind of see the thread path...

Cons:

• Threading it takes a degree in patience because you have to go through holes, wrap around stuff, up and down and up and down, and the threader itself is a bit tricky
• Foot doesn't lift up super high like the Janome HD3000 did.  I foresee my hammer getting used more.  It does lift extra, but I could use a little more lift...
• Only straight stitch, for zig-zags or stretch stitches I'm going to need to pull out one of the older machines.
• No free arm, so sewing around bag edges is going to take some practice doing it inside out
• Light is led but not as bright as the one I put into the HD3000. Might have to find my strip of LED lights I bought a few years ago...
• No 3/8" mark. It has 1/4", 1/2" and 5/8", but most of my patterns call for 3/8".  Time to get the washi tape out and make a guide!  

The mini spotlight is not as bright as I would like it...makes the seam allowance guide a bit in the shadows too!

Tricky Bits:

• Bobbin is a side one and I've lost my skills with them, so I manage to drop it several times whenever I change it.
• Uses a different bobbin (metal) so I can't use my stash of empty embroidery bobbins anymore (more of an annoyance than an actual con, since I have to buy a ton of them to match for every color I use)
• Really easy to go too fast and have it grab the fabric and run where it wants.  Trying some magnetic seam guides to help with this
• Changing feet takes a little more effort and a screwdriver
• Changing a broken needle takes the screwdriver - so far the only ones I've broken were trying to sew over zipper pulls and I had to toss the pulls because it dug grooves into them!
• Getting thread tension right is an actual process, I can't just throw stuff on and sew.  It's easy to change both the bobbin and top thread tension, but it takes a little time to get it balanced.  Worth it tho to have perfect stitches!  I'm hoping that once I have it tuned just right, it will not need changed that much unless I drastically switch fabrics. 
• I have to actually oil the machine! It says every 2 weeks, but just a drop at a time.  I need to set a reminder on my calendar because I can't keep track of that. I oil my serger about every time I use it, but that is only about once a month anyway. 

So far I've had it for a few months and I'm loving it!  I haven't been able to find a teflon foot for it yet, but the vinyl doesn't seem to be sticking to the foot (yet), so I might be ok...  I haven't even tried out the walking foot it came with yet, but I squeezed in enough room to set up the extension table and knee lift.  The knee lift is taking a lot more coordination than I have late at night...or maybe it was because I was using it to zip through some crayon rolls and there was a lot of short lines with lifting and resetting...  I'm getting decent at guestimating my 3/8" seams because the washi tape kept coming up and I was too lazy to find a thin permanent marker to see if it will stay or rub off.